New Britain Political Races Hit Immediate Bumps

NEW BRITAIN — While reading newspaper stories Saturday morning about the local GOP's newly endorsed candidates to run for aldermen, Paul Shaker Jr. was startled by one name.

His own.

"I never said I was even interested in running. There was a joke with a guy one night at a restaurant who said I should run, but that was it," Shaker said Wednesday as he wondered how he'd been entered in a race that he has no intention to run.

"How can I be asking them to take my name off? I never asked to have it put on," said Shaker, a well-known New Britain funeral home director who hasn't run for office before. "I can't run, I stay straight down the middle. I have to bury Democrats and Republicans."

Both parties nominated candidates late last week, and so far each side has already lost one.

While Shaker doesn't want to run in any race, Hunter Mathena had been nominated to be in two: Democrats chose him on Wednesday night to run for board of assessment appeals, and Republicans nominated him Friday evening to seek a Ward 5 seat on the common council.

Mathena said Wednesday that he has decided to stay with the Republicans and drop the assessment appeals board campaign.

"I approached both parties months ago and said I wasn't happy with the way the budget was being put together this year. They both pretty much told me the same thing: 'Get involved, do something about it,'" Mathena said. The GOP selected him to run for council in Ward 3, a far more powerful position than a seat on the assessment appeals board.

"I'm pretty upset with some things that took place with the budget this year. I'm more concerned with getting things right in the city," and a position as alderman would give a better chance to make policy changes, Mathena said.

Shaker, a registered Democrat, is submitting a letter to get his name off the ballot, GOP Town Chairman Dwight Blint said.

"We'll have another candidate [to fill that slot]," Blint said.

Democratic Town Chairman John McNamara said his party will select a replacement candidate for the appeals board in mid-August.